Points of Impact
by ChelleyBean
Summary: The thoughts of the crew after the events of 05X12
1. Rhade

Disgust.

Yes, I am disgusted, but not for the reasons they all believe.

They think that it sickens me to know that there are genes shared between Beka and myself, but that is not true. I know Beka Valentine. I have fought beside her. I have saved her life and she has saved mine. I am Nietzchean, a member of a race that prides itself on personal strength and survival skills, and yet I have never met anyone who displays these traits more solidly than Beka Valentine.

It is easy to see why the Progenitor would choose her above all women. She would be a welcomed addition to any pride.

But that is why I am disgusted. Not that I share DNA with Beka, but that I share DNA with the Progenitor. We have been raised to consider him the greatest of all Nietzcheans, the perfect man. To meet him and learn that he was a madman had been too much to bear. To know that this disgusting, manipulative creature was the father of my entire race turned my stomach. This was the man I held up like a paragon to Tyr Anasazi, claiming that the Progenitor would have never stooped so low as to shoot a blind prophet, and yet I have no doubt that Drago Museveni would have done just that. The man had no morals. No decency.

Drago Museveni made a conscious choice to create our race. He made the decision to try and improve the human creature through genetic engineering. He used his own genetic material to do this, DNA that had been engineered by his father before him. This we all knew. Why it was never questioned where he obtained the female DNA to add with his own, I cannot fathom. That he obtained it through theft turns my stomach.

He never asked Beka if she wanted to be the mother of us all, he just took what he needed from her and used it without her consent. His actions were no different than if he had forced her to conceive and give birth against her will. It was on the same level as a Magog implanting its eggs into a paralyzed host. To think that my entire race was created through actions that were no better than rape… it is too painful to bear.

I do not think that the others appreciate the irony of the situation. We are taught to revere the Progenitor, so we will feel the need to revere Beka. Millions of Nietzcheans will honor a woman who, had she known what was going to happen, would have probably taken an oath of celibacy and avoided all men to prevent it. We are taught to honor Drago Museveni, but it is Beka who deserves our respect.

Actually, Beka might appreciate the irony. She usually has a good sense of humor.

But I'm not sure that even she could understand the disgust.


	2. Andromeda

It was difficult, but I refrained.

One shot. One round fired as Museveni's ship flew towards the Route of Ages. One life ended here and there would have been no Nietzchean rebellion. No fall of the Commonwealth. No Gaheris Rhade to sabotage me.

No Telemachus.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. One life ended here, and millions of lives would never be. My avatar once told Dylan that I try not to dwell on Right and Wrong, and I spoke the truth. Right and Wrong are human concepts that often throw out logic. That is why AIs will always need humans; they bring their emotions into the equation. While that may not be the best choice in mathematics, it is a necessary component for life. Life is not always black and white, but often shades of gray.

It is unfortunate, what has befallen Beka. The human psyche is a delicate thing, which is why I only gave her the names of those Nietzcheans she already knew. I did not list the dozens of others who have served on me since my christening. The situation at the time was stressful enough, and I needed my pilot to return to me in one piece, not push her into doing something foolish while she was still aboard the Maru.

However, given that Museveni's sins also included the emotional and moral wrongs he committed against Beka, I would have been justified in more ways than one had I opened fire on his ship. Such action would have undone many wrongs, but it would have also committed more than one.

This is why I tend to avoid Right and Wrong. They are matters too complex for logical thinking.

It is better to leave such things to the human mind.


	3. Doyle

This is something that makes me glad that I am not organic.

Harper may have created me, but he made me to be my own entity. I do not believe that he would ever take any part of me to make others without my consent. He would ask first, and if I said that it was not what I wanted, he would refrain. Museveni did not even ask Beka. He just took her DNA like a thief and made her the mother of millions.

As well as Harper programmed me; I still do not have the capacity to imagine what she must be feeling at this moment.

It is not as though he took her genetic material and ran experiments she would never know about. The evidence of his work is something that she faced every day of her life. She witnessed their actions first hand. She fought beside them and against them and knows their every sin. How many has she been forced to kill in battle, only to now know that she was firing against her own flesh and blood?

I cannot even begin to imagine how this must weigh upon her.

I do not want to be able to imagine it.

In this moment, I am grateful not to be real.


	4. Dylan

There is no perfect answer.

I knew he was trouble the moment I learned you were attracted to him. You have yet to choose someone who isn't trouble. In fact, you've had more bad luck in your love life than all the Shakespearian tragedies combined. When that smarmy, smart-aleck face appeared on the screen, I had a sudden urge to punch him out, cold. I did not want to give credence to my suspicions as he spoke about survival skills and centuries and the Route of Ages, but I couldn't ignore them. The results of the DNA comparisons confirmed my fears.

Although, I'm not all that surprised that creator of the Nietzchean race would be lying, manipulative bastard. Just look at the Nietzcheans themselves. Hard to believe that they were made from you. Sure you have your rough spots, but I'd still trust upi at my back in a fight any day. I can't say that about most Nietzcheans I've known. You may still try to come off as selfish and greedy, but I can still see the old Beka there, hiding inside your eyes.

I wanted to tear him apart. I wanted to break him in half. You and I will never be more than friends, but you are a part of the closest thing I have to a family any longer. It would have been nice had killing Museveni been a neat, clean solution to all our problems. Without him, the Commonwealth would still be alive and well, the Vedrans would not have had a reason to close themselves off and I wouldn't have been trapped in the even horizon of a black hole for three hundred years.

But it wasn't a clean solution.

I'm sorry, Beka. As much as I wanted to kill him for you, I couldn't let him stay dead. Not after I saw Rhade fade out like that. Everyone else probably would have been okay, but Rhade and the other Nietzcheans would have been gone forever. None of us have the right to make that decision. I had to bring him back and I had to let him go. And I had to let him keep the DNA that he took from you to start his master race.

I know that troubles you, Beka, but you can't blame yourself for all the ills that have befallen the galaxies at the hands of the Nietzcheans. That is Museveni's doing; it's how he made them. And you know they don't all turn out like that. If you would just let him get closer, you'd see that Telemachus has inherited some of your better traits. But I suppose, given your history with the Nietzchean race, it's understandable that you keep a wall about your heart like you do.

So I'll tease you and I'll joke with you. I'll try to keep things as lighthearted as possible, because I know that when you've had enough, you'll tell me where I can stick my force lance. Subtlety has never been your strongest point.

Don't worry, Beka. You've faced harder trials than this. You've been possessed by the Abyss and faced down hungry Magog.

After that, being mother to a race of genetically engineered supermen should be easy.


	5. Harper

The Mother of all Nietzcheans.

Well, that might explain why she goes all rubber-kneed whenever an alpha Uber smiles at her.

Ah, that ain't fair. So Beka's got crappy taste in men. Lots of women have that problem. They never go for the really great guys like me.

And where does Rhade get off being all sick like? He should be honored to have Beka as a… however many greats she is. Guess Drago only kept the mean, tough-as-nails, laugh-in-the-face-of-danger parts of her DNA, because he sure as hell didn't keep the good parts. He didn't give them the part of her that took me in and kicked that loser, Bobby, out. He didn't keep the part of her that stands by you in a fight, no matter what. And he didn't give them her flying skills, neither. Everyone knows that there isn't a Nietzchean out there who flies even half as well as Beka Valentine.

Mother of all Nietzcheans. I can't hold that against her. It wasn't her fault, she can't help it if the one weakness she has is judging a pretty face. I think she's just always looking for love but doesn't want to bother with the commitment. She picks guys who won't stick around so she doesn't have to fear being left behind. At least, that's what I would say if I were a psychiatrist or something. So she's the unwilling mother of a race of millions of scum-sucking psychopaths! She didn't ask for it.

Still, it's something to think about, ain't it? All those times that the Ubers tried to kill us, if they had succeeded, then they would have just blinked out of existence. There wouldn't have been any Nietzcheans without Beka. The Commonwealth wouldn't have fallen without the Nietzcheans. Earth would still be a great place, I wouldn't be susceptible to every germ that winked at me and Dylan would have married Sarah and lived happily ever after. Of course, then no one would have killed Beka and Drago would have found her and there would have been Nietzcheans and all that would have started again. Time travel's funny that way.

It's not her fault. It really isn't.

Still… you can't help but think.


	6. Trance

Did I know this?

Was there a time before we came here that I knew this?

I felt that something was wrong when he spoke to me in the bar. There was something, a fluttering within my mind that told me that he was dangerous. A feeling in my belly that told me that he was trouble. But surely, if I had ever known this, I would have said something. Or maybe not. It seems that I never told very much of anything that I once knew.

But to have not told Beka what would happen to her… what possible reason would I have to keep that a secret? Surely our friendship then would have been enough for me to have warned her. Surely there was a possible, perfect future where this did not happen to her. Or was the thought of an entire race never having been born enough for me to hold my warnings behind my teeth?

She looked stunned. Set adrift.

Betrayed.

Am I her betrayer? I do not remember enough to know for sure, but I would like to believe that I am not.

I would like to believe that there is a purpose in this.


	7. Beka

Fool.

Idiot.

Stupid. Moron. Nitwit. Dumb, ignorant… ARGH!

Just once, just _once_ can't I fall for a decent guy? Can't I, just one time in my life, find someone who isn't going to try and kill me, or die on me or try to use me for something? Is there not a single, decent man left in the universe?

This has to be the biggest screw up of my life! I find yet another jerk and end up being the mother of the biggest collection of megalomaniacal warmongers ever seen in recorded history. Why do I keep doing this? How can I keep doing this? How could there possibly be this many lousy men in existence?

Okay, so technically he was from the past, so he's a whole new lousy man. Or a whole old one… whatever.

Way to go, Valentine.

I wish that this were all some warped, twisted dream I could wake up from. That I could open my eyes and be back on the Maru, lying in my bunk all snug and sound. No dice, though. I pinched myself. It's real.

I think back to all the times that I've run across a Nietzchean. I remember the time Tyr told me he could never be interested in a human woman and the time he told me he often wished I were a Nietzchean. Ha! Wouldn't he have egg on his face, now! Or how about how Elsbett was always strutting around, acting so superior, or Quechua, that female fighter jockey? I guess the resemblance between us makes a bit more sense now.

How many lives have they destroyed? How many worlds have they enslaved? How much pain and sorrow have they caused?

What mother wouldn't be proud?

I suppose there's Rhade, at least. Errin, that Kenja girl, as well. Two Nietzcheans who managed to remain somewhat sane and trustworthy. The race isn't a total loss. Of course, this place seems to have broken Rhade. He had a wife and kids, too. I never met them, but I bet they were good people.

Damn it, Peter! Or Drago, or whatever your name really is. How could you do this to me? How could anyone do this to another person?

I never wanted to be a mother. If I had, there would have been no end of willing donors. It just wasn't right for me.

Did Tyr know? Did any of them know? Did he leave some clue behind?

No, he couldn't have. If he did, I wouldn't be here now. They'd have done something, like capture me for my own 'protection'. I'd be in some ivory tower somewhere until they could have offered me up on a silver platter the day their Progenitor came forward in time.

I don't think I want them to know, but Dylan seems to plan to use this to bring them all in line.

Funny how life works out.

I hope the expression on their faces is worth it.


End file.
